A Father's Memories
by dersea
Summary: Luke saves Vader only long enough for him to show Leia who he was in the past hoping she would forgive him.


Chapter 1

"Luke," Anakin called. "Help me take this mask off"

"But you'll die," Luke responded. "I have to save you."

"You already have." Anakin replied.

"No I can't do this at least let's show Leia who Anakin Skywalker is,"

"And we shall."

"Then let's get on board before the Death star blows up."

Luke tried to help his father onto the shuttle and they made their way down to Endor while the death star was going to blow up.

_Forest moon of Endor_

Leia stared up into the sky as she noticed the death star explode. Han was attending to her wounds when he said hopefully' "I'm sure Luke wasn't on that thing when it blew."

"He wasn't," Leia replied. "I can feel it."

"You love him?" Han asked making Leia looked up at him. "Don't you."

"Yes"

"Alright," Han replied with disappointment. "I understand..." Han was cut off when Leia's comm went off. "Luke? Is that you?"

"Yes. It's me." Luke replied to her. "Leia. I need you to come down to the landing platform. I will be in an Imperial Shuttle and I'll be there in about 3 Minutes."

"Sure Luke I'll be there as soon as you arrive." She told him as she turned the commlink off. "Han about before I don't love Luke like that. He's my brother."

Han felt happy again. Now he knew that he wouldn't have to compete with Luke for Leia so now he would have an even better chance. "Well what are we waiting for let's go to the landing pad."

As Leia and Han arrived at the Landing platform the shuttle also arrived in time too. Once it landed Luke came out and invited them into the shuttle. "Oh yes. By the way I'm going to need your blasters."

"Why?" The two of them asked in union as they handed their blasters to him.

"Don't worry. You'll be quite safe in here."

"Fine." Han responded. "But if it's anything illegal I'll be getting the authorities in on this one."

As he led them in they went to the cockpit and they noticed that it was no other than Darth Vader lying down on the floor. Luke was staring at him sadly. Han was wondering how is it that **One person** could do this to the infamous Darth Vader. Leia's anger started to boil up inside of her. As she was about to leave she was stopped by her brother. "Leia please don't leave, I know what he did to you and he feels sorry. He feels sorry for everything he has done. I don't expect you to forgive and forget but please you know he is dying just know him as your father for at least for five minutes."

"Fine Luke." Leia told him knowing that he was the very last connection to their mother so she wanted to use this time as wisely as possible. She walked back into the room and demanded that he tell her everything he remembered about her mother.

"All of you hold onto me." Anakin told them.

"Excuse me." Leia needed to hear that again.

"Hold onto me." He told them. "Your mother is a painful topic for me, so I decided to show you my memories instead of telling you of them."

Everyone held onto Anakin as he used all of his power to project to his children and Han his life. They all saw him and his mother getting a beating for Gardulla the Hutt. "I was a slave until I was nine years old on Tatooine."

Leia stared at him with shock. Her father was originally a slave. She didn't know whether to feel pity for him or to be sad seeing his life like this.

The next image she saw was that there was this beautiful woman who actually looked like her walk into their house. "That is you mother." She also saw someone who the young Anakin called mom. She realised that it was her grandmother. She was shocked to see someone who was a slave was so happy. She must love her son a lot to keep the sadness of being a slave. When she turned towards Luke she noticed that he was studying every single feature of his parents as children and his grandmother.

Everything went by so fast that it seemed too short for all of this to contain his father's memories. When she saw everything that happened in his life she knew know that Darth Vader didn't just throw away his life just for power. He thought by selling his soul to the Dark Side he would be able to save his wife from certain death.

As everything ended his breathing became heavy again. "I used all my strength to show you my memories. Please help me take this mask off."

"Why." Leia exclaimed starting to cry. "You'll die faster. I don't want you to die. I finally get to know my father and everything and now you just go ahead and ask us to end you death here and now. No. There has to be a way to save you."

"The nearest medical port is 6 parsecs away." Han told them.

"You'd never make it even with your ship it won't be fast enough to make it there." Anakin responded. "Take off my mask. I beg you. I would rather die knowing the last things I saw was your actual faces instead of them in the mask."

"Leia," Luke called out to her. "It's his time. I wouldn't want it to be this way but from the way I see it is that even on Coruscant the technology to do whatever happened to him, will take another 48 years to get enough money and he already gave nearly a quarter of his money to find the answers already."

"Please don't go." Leia tried to hope. "I just can't bare to lose you when I've barely know the real you for three minutes."

"Your mother died on the beginning of the Empire knowing that all she knew and stood for had died. And I will now die at the end knowing that I have fixed everything and restored democracy to the galaxy." Anakin knew that today all that he help create will now crumble and he was happy for that.

"I will always watch over you both." Anakin promised to them.

Luke and Leia both helped each other take off their father's mask and when they took it off they saw a scared face of a sorry man. "Luke you saved me my son now thanks to you I die a happy good man instead of a sad, broken evil man. And Leia you have grown up to be a beautiful young woman like your mother."

Once his life force dimmed forever Luke and Leia both started crying. And after a little bit Han started crying too knowing the father of the woman he loves just died.

_Another part of Endor_

Luke had just burned their father's body. Something that Leia did not want to see. After actually seeing their father's body burning in the Lava of Mustafar Leia now officially hated fire. She cried knowing that her father just died but she was also happy knowing that he died a good man.

_The party_

Luke and Leia were finally at the party of the destruction of the Empire. But they couldn't celebrate, knowing that their father had died on this day too.

They decided to go and take a walk when they noticed a shimmering blue figure straight ahead and they knew exactly who he was. They both ran up to him with tears of Joy while his only words being, "I told you I would watch over you both."


End file.
